Rare wants a sandbox game with no leveling involving Pirates. Great, they've got the basics in many ways, but lots of "no content" complaints. My suggestion would be to find a way to incorporate ideas from the greates pirate game of all time: Sid Meier's Pirates! Sure it is 30 years old, and involved 64K of memory. But here's what could be added:
- Plunder/defend Outposts/cities (make it super hard - lots of fort cannons, multiple teams 8 vs. 8 or something as a public event. Force teamwork across crews, unlike the current public event. Defenders get more gold the more time they hold out, attackers can steal stuff of kill and hold hostage for more, etc...
- Earn Rep from one faction at the expense of other factions (leads to pirate hunters etc.). Sail for England to become an Admiral, but the Spanish hate you. So some outposts become off limits in a sense... unless you bribe them off (just like SM P again)
- Different/more kinds of goods to haul in some kind of economy (certain outposts prefer chickens over pigs (Sugar, Spices, etc.)
- Some use for the barmaid to get real info ("there's a galleon with 20 chests somewhere in the NE corner of the map" "the last ship that showed up here was 9 minutes ago" or "I heard that there was nothing going on in the SW side of the map." General stuff that you could use for a strategy. Charge 20 gold for info or something, whatever. Let her tell me something useful!
- Pirate Hunter bounties for doing things that tick off one faction (or even a pirate hunter faction where two ships are given a bounty on each other).
Enough rambling - here's the first best idea I've got for integrating one facet: the treasure fleet. You queue to get into a fleet (say a few galleons and a few sloops). They get shared rewards, so no incentive to plunder each other. They start at an outpost with a goodly chunk of goods, and have the option to pick up chests/spices/items/etc. at certain places spread across the map. They have a shared goal: sail that stuff right off the opposite corner of the map (or to wherever, I don't care, but they have a starting place and a goal just like the real treasure fleet). If they get there, the whole fleet gets the rewards. They get some kind of marker in the sky so everyone else knows they're out there. Maybe they convoy or split up, etc. - they can put their chests/treasure on many ships or one and defend it, and crew can all get on one ship and sail the others as decoys, etc. lots of potential stragegies here. But their ship(s) once in viewing range have a banner/flag on top that says "I'm in that fleet, please plunder me." Just like in S.M. Pirates, the barmaid can tell non-fleet people some kind of info ("heard they need to pick up some tea at Plunder Oupost" or "sounds like someone saw a fleet ship outside of Cannon Cove." Rewards for picking everything up and delivering it are like 15k or whatever, and if you pick off a ship you basically get whatever they've got on it for your non-fleet crew.
Other than that, I'll take whatever you can figure out to steal from Sid Meier. Thanks!
